


Put your helmet on

by liionne



Series: A thousand ways to meet [11]
Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-10
Updated: 2013-09-10
Packaged: 2017-12-26 06:03:17
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,601
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/962470
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/liionne/pseuds/liionne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Leonard stood at the back door with Chapel, peering at the gigantic crater that now lay in his back garden. It hadn't been there when he'd left for work - he might have been a little out of it before a cup of coffee, but he was pretty sure he would've remembered a massive smoking hole that had destroyed Sulu's vegetable patch.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Put your helmet on

"That's one hell of a mole."

Leonard stood at the back door with Chapel, peering at the gigantic crater that now lay in his back garden. It hadn't been there when he'd left for work - he might have been a little out of it before a cup of coffee, but he was pretty sure he would've remembered a massive smoking hole that had destroyed Sulu's vegetable patch.

"I don't think that's a mole." Leonard narrowed his eyes, crossing his arms over his chest.

"There's smoke coming out of it." Chapel observed.

Leonard glanced at her sideways. "You're on top form tonight, Christine. I think I can do this without you, if you're going to be this level of helpful."

Christine frowned at him. "Just go and see what it is, please."

"Why me?" Leonard asked, slightly outraged.

"Because you're the big strong man and I'm a little fragile lady." She said, looking up at him and batting long lashes.

His eyes narrowed. "You're anything but fragile, Chris."

"Just go and check it out before the neighbours see." She snapped, shoving him in the direction of the hole.

With a heavy sigh he picked up the crowbar he'd left against the porch railing last time he'd been out in the garden, and took a few steps towards the crater. He raised the crowbar above his head, ready to hit anything that tried to crawl out of it.

He peered over the edge - it was deep, and right at the bottom was what looked like a shuttle. It was beaten up and covered in dirt, but it as definitely a shuttle.

Leonard threw a stone at it. It made a dull thunk.

"Can you not?"

Christine gasped, and Leonard turned round to find a man in a blue shiny jumpsuit frowning at him just a little. Short blonde hair stuck up in all directions, clearly knocked from its style, and his eyes were the brightest shade of blue Bones had ever seen. Too blue to be human. But he certainly _looked_ like a human - a cute human at that.

Leonard shook his head. That wasn't a thought he wanted.

"I kinda need it to get home. If you knock anything outta place with that rock I'll be in big trouble." He continued, skidding down the side of the crater to affectionately stroke the side of his ship.

Leonard turned round to look at Christine. Her hands were covering her mouth, and she looked at him wide eyed. He turned back to Jumpsuit and frowned a little. "Can you please tell me who the hell you are, and why you've ruined my garden?"

"Aw jeez, this is your garden?" He looked up, scratching his head. "Sorry 'bout that. Can't pick where you crash land." He shrugged.

"Of course." Leonard muttered. As if he knew anything about crash landing anywhere.

"I'm Jim, Jim Kirk." He clambered out of the crater, holding a muddy hand out to Leonard. Leonard just looked at it.

"Pretty normal name for an alien." He mused.

"Well technically, you're the alien." Jim said.

"Well you kinda came here, so I guess-" Christine began from the porch. She stopped talking when he looked towards her, pursing her lips together.

"Who's that?" Jim asked.

"Christine." He answered.

"Leonard!" She hollered from the porch, scowling at him.

"Leonard." Jim smiled, taking a hold of his hand and shaking vigorously. "Nice to meet you."

"Yeah, you too. So when are you leaving?" Leonard asked.

Jim laughed as if it were a joke. It really wasn't. "Can't just yet. My ship's broken, I need to fix it. It's gonna take a while."

Leonard sighed. He should've known. Since when had his life been easy? "A while?"

"Maybe a month, minimum." Jim shrugged.

"And where're you gonna stay?" Leonard asked, moe out of concern for himself than for Jim.

"Well," Jim chuckled awkwardly. "About that..."

He toed the dirt, and Leonard narrowed his eyes.

Jim looked up through thick dark lashes, flashing baby blues and blinking like a baby deer. Leonard was almost - almost - startled into submission. As it was, his eyes just widened and then narrowed. He wasn't having any of this shit.

"Could I, maybe, crash here?" He asked, hands behind his back.

"You sort of already did." Christine said, appearing over Leonard's shoulder and almost giving him a heart attack.

Jim chuckled. "As my first officer would say, I was only attempting to use your verncular."

"Well I think that if you don't have any where to stay you should just stay he-"

"Christine." Leonard snapped. He turned her away, leading her out of ear shot by the back porch. "Stop that. If you think the alien should stay then maybe he should stay with _you_."

"Can't, Janice moved in last week, remember?" She raised her eyebrows. "And anyway, my flat is on the other side of town, it's quite the commute."

"You're worrying about the _commute_!?" He hissed.

"Leonard," She said, and he tone said 'shut up and do what I'm saying'. "Let that poor guy stay in your house."

"He's not a guy!"

"He needs a home." She said, putting her hands on her hips.

"Well then he can find one elsewhere."

She raised her eyebrows. "Leonard."

"Christine."

" _Leonard_."

"Argh!" He threw his hands up, scowling. "Fine." He turned, walking back to Jim and his shuttle. He was absently stroking the side again, eyes raking over it in some mental assessment.

"You can stay, damn it." Leonard cried.

Jim grinned, scrambling back up the hole to clasp Leonard's upper arms. "Thank you!" He smiled, pulling him into a hug.

Leonard tried to focus more on looking grumpy and less on thinking about how good he smelled.

~*~

Jim stayed in the guest bedroom, opposite his and next to Joanna's, which was vacant more often than not. When Leonard woke in the morning it was to the smell of burning and the sound of the blaring smoke alarm.

He frowned, wondering where the burning was coming from. He was the only one in the house - had he left the oven on?

And then he remembered.

"Jim!" He hollered, throwing himself down the stairs towards the kitchen.

Jim was stood amidst the mess, eyes narrowed and coughing violently. He looked up at the smoke alarm as it bleeped, red light flickering on and off.

"God damn it, Jim!" Leonard cried, running to open the back door, and then opening the windows above the sink. Smoke followed the air out into the back garden, clearing the room a little as Leonard wafted a towel under the smoke alarm. The beeping stopped but Jim's coughing persisted, and Leonard patted him on the back.

"Are you out of your corn fed mind?" He snapped, as he hauled Jim over to wretch into the sink. "What were you trying to do?"

"Make you-" He spluttered, stomach clenching. "Breakfast-"

As Jim gagged into the sink, Leonard's gaze softened just a little. Well that was kind of cute. Even if Jim nearly had burned down the whole house.

"What was burning?" Leonard asked.

"Pancakes." Jim answered.

Damn. Leonard liked pancakes.

"Where are they now?" He asked, suddenly cautious.

"Dead." Jim answered simply. He gave one final retch, and stood up straight. "Sorry, Bones."

"Bones?" Leonard raised an eyebrow.

"Mm." Jim hummed. He didn't offer an explanation, and Leonard gave an exasperated sigh.

He patted his shoulder, turning towards the oven. "Go and sit down, I'll make us both something."

~*~

Leonard was out at work a lot, and he didn't trust Jim with the back door keys, so he made sure to make him a packed lunch and leave him with a good supply of water before he left. He wrote his mobile number and his work phone number on Jim's arm in permanent marker, and given him strict instructions to go next door and use the neighbour's telephone if there was an emergency. Jim didn't seem very obediant - his attention was always wandering and he was always getting into trouble, but he promised Leonard, so Leonard chose to trust him.

"How's the alien?" Christine asked, a week or so into Jim's stay.

"Well he's almost burnt my house down three times, and needed serious medical attention times than I can count, but other than that he's great." Leonard muttered, pulling off scrubs as they left surgery.

"Sounds like a keeper." She said, flicking blood-stained gloves into the hazardous waste disposal.

"I can't wait till he leaves." He said flippantly.

He was only half serious.

~*~

" _Ohmygodwhatisthat_!?"

Jim hid behind Leonard's shoulder, gripping the topsof his arms as he peeked out from behind him. Leonard frowned, before he caught sight of what had scared Jim so much.

"It's a cat, Jim." He said, chuckling a little. "More specifically, it's Carol's cat, Khan."

"What's a _cat_?" He asked, eyes narrowing.

"They're pets. People - humans - keep them for company." He shrugged.

"Are they like humans?" Jim asked, brow furrowing.

"Kinda. They can be moody or they can nice, and they get sick. They function pretty much the same as we do. But y'know. They're furry and they can't talk." Leonard explained.

Normally, he hated the damn thing. It crapped in his garden and it left dead birds on the lawn. And sometimes, it could be quite an evil little shit. But it seemed happy enough today, and Leonard crouched down to call it over.

"Is that their language?" Jim asked, as Leonard 'psst-psst-psst'd at it, holding his arm out and rubbing his fingers together.

The cat meowed, and Leonard said, "No, that is."

"So why don't you use that to call it over?" Jim asked, raising an eyebrow.

"I don't speak cat." Leonard said, smirking.

Khan came stalking over, and Jim took a step back. Leonard turned his head to look at him, rolling his eyes. "He won't bite-" He began, just as the cat sunk it's teeth into his finger.

"Shit!" He cried, watching as blood dribbled down his hand.

Jim's eyes widened, and he breeched the gap to look at Bones' hand. "Are you alright?" He asked, voice full of concern.

"Yeah fine." He looked down at the cat, who trotted off happily. "Damn that little bastard."

"I don't think I like cats." Jim murmured.

"Yeah." Leonard muttered. "Me neither."

~*~

It was his day off, and Jo was meant to be coming over. She's cancelled at the last minute though, said she was going on holiday with her friend and could they maybe reschedule? He'd said sure, whatever, go enjoy yourself.

And now here he was watching Jim work in a pair of his ratty old jeans and a tight white t-shirt that had belonged to a boyfriend of Christine's many moons ago.

Damn it. He was too hot.

Leonard had been feeling like this for a while now, and he was starting to get annoyed. He was thinking about Jim all the time, found his eyes on him whenever they were in the same room together, wanted to be with him when he wasn't there. Which was totally weird, because not only was Jim pretty much a lodger that he'd only met two and a half weeks ago, but Jim wasn't even from this planet. He should've called Homeland Security a long time ago.

If he did it now he might have to follow him to whatever Federal prison they took him to.

Jim said that repairs were right on schedule, and that he should be out of here within a week or so. He said he'd then be out of Leonard's hair, and he could happily get back to his business.

Bones wasn't sure it was going to be that easy.

The light was fading, and it was getting harder for Leonard to see Jim, nevermind for Jim to see the tiny parts of his ship he was trying to fix. Leonard watched as Jim decided to call it a night, pulling himself out of the crater to sit down by Leonard on the porch. He handed him a bottle of water, and Jim took it gladly, taking a sip. "Thanks."

Night rolled in quickly; it was colder now, but if Leonard noticed he didn't say anything. It was hard to feel cold when Jim was pressed up against his side anyway.

"See right there," Jim said, when it was dark enough to see the stars. He pointed a finger at the night sky, somewhere off to the east. "My planet's in that direction."

"How the hell can you know that?" Bones raised an eyebrow.

Jim gave a soft smile. "I can feel it. Like a pull. Like a magnet."

Bones gave him a long look, frown dissolving as he bit his lip.

"What's your planet like?" He asked.

Jim smiled a little. "It's a lot bigger than this, but pretty much the same. We're more advanced than you are." He smiled teasingly.

"Doesn't surprise me." Leonard muttered.

Jim smiled. "It's all tall silver, shiny buildings, and perfect quares and perfect circles. But we like our heritage, so the government building's still this old stone pillared building, but it's got silver patterns all over it, and it's so bright you can see your reflection." Bones tilted his head as he listened, Jim painting the perfect picture in his mind. "And right outside is this beautiful stone fountain, and the water's so damn blue, the bluest blue you've ever seen."

 _Like your eyes_ , Bones thought, but he bit his tongue.

"It's beautiful." Jim concluded.

Sometimes, it was easy to forget that Jim was an alien. Like right now, as he sat looking at the stars, cerulean eyes cast up at the sky, even as he described his home planet. He just looked so _human_.

Leonard was about to reach out a hand to take his, but instead he planted it on his knee. He needed some self control.

"Do you miss it?" He asked quietly.

Jim gave a weak smile. "Like crazy."

~*~

Jim was nearly done. There were only three days, he said, until his ship would be ready. Until he would leave, and Leonard would never see him again.

He was seriously considering taking a crowbar to that ship.

"Who's this?" Jim asked, interrupting Leonard's brainstorming on how he could destroy the ship without anyone knowing it was him. Leonard looked up to see him holding out a photo frame.

"My daughter." Leonard shrugged. It was the picture of her first day in elementary school that they'd taken right out on the drive outside of the old house that now belonged to Jocelyn. Her dark hair was tied up in pig tails, and she beamed, showing off a gap-toothed grin.

"Oh." Jim murmured. He sounded strangely wounded. "I didn't know you had a family."

"I don't." Leonard shook his head, looking back down to the journal he was reading. "She's all I've got."

"But you've gotta have a wife if you've got a kid." Jim said, sitting in the arm chair just to the left of Leonard, the photo still in his hand.

"Not anymore." Leonard snorted. "We got divorced."

"Di-vorced?" Jim asked, pronouncing the word slowly. "What does that mean?"

"We split up." Leonard said. "We're not together anymore. She lives with her mom, and her new step-dad."

Jim just looked confused. Leonard raised an eyebrow, "What, do you not have divorce on your planet?"

"Well- no." He shook his head. "Marriage is still... sacred. Like it was in the old days. It's for life. We have trial periods, to see if two people who want to be married are compatible. And if they are, they get married. But once you're married, that's it."

"Jeez." Leonard murmured. "Sounds heavy."

"No." Jim shook his head. "It's good."

Silence.

"You, uh, married?" Leonard asked.

"No." Jim shook his head again. "But I've done the trial before."

"Oh." Leonard murmured, feeling his heart sink. "So you're getting married?"

Jim gave a rueful smile. "No. It didn't work out."

Leonard gave a nod. They were back to silence, but he had to ask, "Was she nice?"

"He was great." Jim smiled, gaze returning to the photo, ignoring the way Leonard's eyes widened.

~*~

"Well Bones," He said. He was back in that blue jumpsuit, stood at the edge of the crater. "This is it."

"Yeah." Leonard spoke around the lump in his throat. "Guess so."

"Thanks for keeping a roof over my head." He smiled.

Leonard nodded. "Not a problem."

They looked at each other for a long, long time. This was the day Bones had been dreading for a month and a day. Jim going home, leaving this world and never coming back. He felt sick. And angry. And lonely.

He just didn't want Jim to go.

"Well," Jim said, after at least a minute's silence. "I better get going."

Bones said nothing, just stared.

"Bye Chris!" Jim waved to her, and she waved back from the bottom step of the porch.

"Bye Jim." She smiled, crossing her arms over her chest.

Jim paused, his eyes meeting Leonard's. "Goodbye, Bones."

Leonard just gave a nod. He pressed his lips into a thin line, and looked up. "Take care of yourself, you hear?"

Jim gave him a bright smile. "I'll see you around some time."

Leonard took a shaky breath, and Jim skidded down the crater to his ship. He yanked the door open, and the light inside broke through the pitch black of the night.

Christine appeared at Leonard's side, hugging her cardigan close to her body. "I bet you'll be glad to see the back of him, eh?" She smiled.

The engine of the ship started, a soft whirring noise. Leonard felt sick.

The ship began to shudder, and flames spewed out the bottom, pushing him out of the hole by just a few feet.

"I can't let him go." Leonard murmured.

"What?" Christine asked. The noise was getting louder.

"I can't let him go." Leonard repeated, lourder this time.

Jim was already fifteen feet in the air, and getting higher. "Jim!" He yelled, trying anyways. "Jim, come back!" He waved his hands, but Jim didn't see him. He kept rising, 20 feet, 30 feet, 40 feet- Leonard kept yelling, waving his arms and jumping as if that was going to help anyone.

And then Jim was gone. And slowly, Leonard lowered his arms, his eyes still on the sky.

"I'm sorry Leo." Christine murmured, placing a cold hand on his forearm.

Leonard just looked up at the sky, trying to look for that little silver shuttle. "Please come back, Jim." He whispered.

~*~

Jim did not come back.

For two weeks, Leonard moped. He refused to fill the crater Jim had left behind, even though Christine told him it was maybe for the best. Jo came over for the weekend, but Leonard wasn't the best company. She asked what the hole in the back garden was. He said it was a memory.

~*~

Three weeks, and he filled the hole with dirt, and planted new grass over the top. Within a few weeks, it was back to normal.

~*~

Two months, and he was still dreaming of Jim. Those piercing blue eyes, the short sandy hair, the smile he'd give when he found something he liked.

Leonard saw Khan in the back garden. He didn't have the heart to shoo him.

~*~

Four months, and he still thought of him every day. When he looked at the scorch marks on the bottom of the frying pan, or when he pulled on that tight white t-shirt, hoping it would still smell like Jim.

It didn't.

Leonard threw it in the bin.

~*~

Six months, and his life was almost back to normal.

He could at least now pretend that he wasn't thinking of Jim, and if Christine suspected anything she didn't pull him up about it. She thought that he was forgetting about Jim Kirk and the almighty hole he'd left, in his heart as well as in his garden.

~*~

Eight months later, and he still looked out of the window at night. He curled up in bed, wrapping himself in the blankets and hoping the loneliness would go away.

~*~

A year later, and he had learned to sleep with the curtains up, so he could see the stars from his bed.

But he still missed the massive fire ball that crashed into his back garden.

He heard the impact and felt the ground shift, and he jolted awake. "What in the-" His heart lept into his mouth. "Jim." He murmured.

He didn't bother to put a shirt on, racing outside into the back yard in nothing but a pair of raggedy old sweats. There it was, the big fucking crater in the fresh grass he'd planted not a year ago, and in it, a ship with smoke billowing from the windows.

"You asshole, you destroyed my garden!" He yelled despite himself.

Jim emerged from the ship, sporting a split lip and a now silver jumpsuit. His eyes, however, hadn't changed. Bones could still see them from a mile away.

"Bones." Jim said. "Leonard."

"Jim." He murmured.

He manged to wait till he reached the top of crater to tackle him into a hug, wrapping strong arms around him. He held him close, breathing in the smell of him, only pulling back to press a firm, almost angry kiss to his lips.

"'m sorry for ruining your garden." Jim murmured.

"Don't be." Leonard returned. "You've got bigger things to be sorry for."

And then he kissed him again, crushing their lips together, not planning on ever letting go.

**Author's Note:**

> So basically I'm opening myself up for prompt again because I have no inspiration at all, and I have way too much free time at college.
> 
> Also I apologise for typos. I really need to invest in a beta.


End file.
